Vincent van Gogh | The Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles
Vincent van Gogh | The Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles
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- 100% hand-painted oil on canvas
- Delivered Framed & Ready to Hang!
- We stretch (Gallery Wrap) every canvas
- Hanging wire is attached to the back
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About The Night Cafe by Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh painted The Night Café in September 1888, in the Café de la Gare in Arles where he was lodging at the time. He worked on it across three consecutive nights and slept through the days, painting the room while it was still in use around him.
He was blunt about what he was after. In a letter to his brother Theo he wrote that he had tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green — that the café was a place where one could ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime. Blood-red walls meet a harsh green ceiling; four gas lamps burn with sickly haloes; the billiard table casts a shadow like a hole in the floor, and the floorboards tilt up towards the viewer so the room seems to slide.
A handful of drinkers slump at the edges. The landlord stands in white beside the billiard table, watching. It is one of the least comfortable pictures Van Gogh ever made, and he knew it — he called it one of the ugliest he had painted, and meant it as a description of what he had achieved rather than a complaint.
The Night Cafe at a glance
- Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
- Painted: September 1888, Arles
- Movement: Post-Impressionism
- Original: Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
- Medium: Oil on canvas, 72.4 × 92.1 cm
Common questions about The Night Cafe
Where is The Night Cafe now?
The Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, which received it as a bequest in 1961. Yale's ownership was challenged in court in 2009 by an heir of the Russian collector Ivan Morozov, whose art was nationalised after the Revolution; the courts found in Yale's favour.
What is The Night Cafe about?
Van Gogh described it himself as a place where a person could ruin themselves, go mad or commit a crime, and said he had tried to express the terrible passions of humanity through red and green. It is a painting about atmosphere and unease rather than about a café.
Is it the same café as Cafe Terrace at Night?
No, and the two are often confused. Café Terrace at Night shows an outdoor terrace on the Place du Forum under a starry sky, painted the same month and full of warmth. The Night Café is the interior of a different establishment, the Café de la Gare, and is deliberately oppressive.
Why are the colours so harsh?
By design. Red and green sit opposite each other on the colour wheel, and at full strength they agitate against one another rather than settling. Van Gogh chose the most jarring pairing available to him precisely because he wanted the room to feel wrong.
How much is The Night Cafe worth?
It belongs to Yale University and is not for sale. For scale, the highest price paid for a Van Gogh at auction is around US$117 million, for Orchard with Cypresses in 2022.
Own a hand-painted Night Cafe
This is not a print. Every painting we sell is reproduced in oils on canvas, by hand, by professional artists — no giclée, no computer-generated technique.
This picture lives or dies on the strength of two colours. Van Gogh put blood red directly against acid green at close to full saturation, because complementaries at that intensity refuse to settle — the eye cannot hold both at once and the room seems to vibrate. Every printing process compresses saturation to stay inside the range of its inks, and as soon as those two colours soften the painting turns into a pleasant picture of a café interior. Mixed from pigment and laid down by hand in oils, the reds and greens stay at the strength Van Gogh needed, and the room becomes uncomfortable again — which is the entire point of it.
- A range of sizes — choose yours above.
- Framed and ready to hang, gallery wrap, or rolled canvas if you would rather frame it yourself.
- 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions.
- Free delivery Australia-wide. Australian owned and operated, with a local contact you can actually reach.
Framing Options: You have 3 choices
Option 1. Choose an outer frame - see images below.
You only need to choose one and the painting will be sent to you framed and ready to hang.
* Below is an example of a customer who chose the Gold Ornate frame
Option 2: Choose a Gallery Wrap Stretched Painting.
If you want the frameless modern gallery wrap look then you only need to choose Stretched Gallery Wrap from the finish option dropdown.
You receive your stretched gallery wrap painting ready to hang - with a hanging wire attached behind.
The back of the Stretched Gallery Wrap looks like the image below - it has a hanging wire!
Option 3: Choose Canvas Only if you want to frame the painting yourself.
Your painting will be sent to you in an art tube - you can then frame it yourself or take it to your local framer.
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